The Snowboarder's Journal - frequency 17.2
GRIT AND GRATITUDE: Mike Schultz Keeps it Moving
Words: James Hancock 2019-10-21 18:51:36
In 2008, “Monster” Mike Schultz sustained a severe compound fracture to his knee during a snowmobile race. Several surgeries ultimately led to the amputation of his left leg above the knee, which quickly put a halt to his professional career as a snocross and motocross athlete. But Mike’s loss became snowboarding’s gain. Ten years later, he carried the flag for Team USA into the 2018 Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea where he won gold and silver medals in snowboard cross and banked slalom, respectively.
From Mike’s injury also emerged a new era in the sports prosthetics industry, which he’s been leading at full throttle. His innovations have transformed the world of adaptive action sports, especially snowboarding. Yet Mike never planned on becoming a professional snowboarder. In fact, he’d never snowboarded at all before his accident. “If you had asked me back then, I would have thought, ‘Me? A snowboarder? Uh, no. I like handlebars and race gas,’” he says. “Now, it’s my number-one priority as an athlete.”
Initially, Mike’s determination to get back on the throttle queued the “unique culmination of events” that would lead him to the top of the adaptive snowboard scene. Through training he began testing the limits of prosthetics available at the time. “I realized I wanted to create a new prosthesis,” he says.
Mike founded his own company, BioDapt Inc., in 2010, in his hometown of St. Cloud, MN and created a knee that met the rigorous demands of power-sports. Mike was back on the motocross and snocross circuits doing what he loved. People were as much in awe of his knee as they were of what he could do on it—especially fellow athletes.
“My second year into adaptive snocross I met Keith Deutsch, a [Iraq War] veteran and adaptive snowboarder,” Mike says. “He was like, ‘Hey, does that work for snowboarding?’ I said, ‘Let me do some testing.’ So, I went home and started snowboarding on it. I had never snowboarded before that. It started as research and development for my product.”
Mike’s first season still went like anyone else’s: filled with ups and downs, bumps and bruises, until that moment when it crystalizes. Fast forward several seasons and Schultz is now a world champion snowboarder, and his contributions to the domain of high-performance prosthetics are no less impressive. For proof, look no further than what fellow athletes were using last year in Pyeongchang. “Fifteen athletes were using my equipment, half were my direct competitors,” Mike says. “Overall, nine athletes using BioDapt products—knees and feet—medaled, with a total of 11 medals.”
Back in the garage, BioDapt has just launched a new foot, and snowboarding is one of its main focuses. Because snowboarding is the most common application of BioDapt prosthetics, it comes as no surprise that Mike’s also been tinkering on a collaboration with Burton involving BioDapt’s VersaFoot prosthetic and Burton’s step-on binding system. “It’s awesome to work with a company who’s trying to make [snowboarding] a more inclusive sport,” he says.
In addition to being a multi-sport professional athlete and businessman, Mike is a dedicated husband and the father of a 5-year-old daughter, Lauren. When he talks about her—or anything—Mike oozes a contagiously inspiring outlook on life. Considering all he’s gone through, no one would begrudge Mike some self-pity, but that’s just not who he is. He’s full of grit and gratitude. “I have a pretty rad setup,” Mike says. “I still have the motorsports world and I get to hang with the top para-athletes in the world because of snowboarding. If I had the chance to get my leg back, I would do it. But I’m a guy who doesn’t like standing still. I make the best of any situation. As far as my approach to life, snowboarding has broadened my perspective. I’m a much stronger person.”
Photo Caption: Schultz on course at the Dew Tour at Breckenridge, CO in 2017—note his self-developed BioDapt prosthetic on his front leg.
Photo: Joe Kusumoto
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